Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites produced by several filamentous fungi, which frequently contaminate our food, and can result in human diseases affecting vital systems such as the nervous and immune systems. They can also trigger various forms of cancer. Intensive food production is contributing to incorrect handling, transport and storage of the food, resulting in increased levels of mycotoxin contamination. Mycotoxins are structurally very diverse molecules necessitating versatile food decontamination approaches, which are grouped into physical, chemical and biological techniques. In this review, a new and promising approach involving the use of cold atmospheric pressure plasma is considered, which may overcome multiple weaknesses associated with the classical methods. In addition to its mycotoxin destruction efficiency, cold atmospheric pressure plasma is cost effective, ecologically neutral and has a negligible effect on the quality of food products following treatment in comparison to classical methods.

Mycotoxins, the toxic secondary metabolites of mould species, are a growing global concern, rendering almost 25% of all food produced unfit for human or animal consumption, thus placing immense pressure on the food supply chain. Cold Atmospheric pressure Plasma (CAP) represents a promising, low-cost, and environmentally friendly means to degrade mycotoxins with negligible effect on the quality of food products. Despite this promise, the study of CAP-mediated mycotoxin degradation has been limited to a small subset of the vast number of mycotoxins that plague the food supply chain. This study explores the degradation of aflatoxins, trichothecenes, fumonisins, and zearalenone using CAP generated in ambient air. CAP treatment was found to reduce aflatoxins by 93%, trichothecenes by 90%, fumonisins by 93%, and zearalenone by 100% after 8 minutes exposure. To demonstrate the potential of CAP-mediated mycotoxin degradation against more conventional methods, its efficiency was compared against ultraviolet C (UVC) light irradiation. In all cases, CAP was found to be considerably more efficient than UVC, with aflatoxin G₁ and zearalenone being completely degraded, levels that could not be achieved using UVC irradiation.

Plasma jets are extensively used in biomedical applications, particularly for exploring cell viability behaviour. However, many experimental parameters influence the results, including jet characteristics, secondary liquid chemistry and protocols used, slowing research progress. A specific interest of the presented research was skin cell behaviour under a non-thermal kHz plasma jet—a so-called cold plasma jet—as a topical skin treatment. Our research was focused on in vitro mouse skin cell direct plasma treatment with argon as an operating gas. The research was complemented with detailed gas-phase diagnostics and liquid-phase chemical analysis of the plasma and plasma-treated medium, respectively. The obtained results showed that direct plasma jet treatment was very destructive, leading to low cell viability. Even with short treatment times (from 35 s to 60 s), apoptosis was observed for most L929 murine fibroblasts under approximately the same conditions. This behaviour was attributed to plasma species generated from direct treatment and the types of cell lines used. Importantly, the research exposed important points that should be taken under consideration for all further research in this field: the urgent need to upgrade and standardise existing plasma treatment protocols of cell lines; to monitor gas and liquid chemistries and to standardise plasma discharge parameters.

Cover Picture: The study demonstrates complete removal of aflatoxin B1 from the artificially contaminated corn kernels with an indirect cold atmospheric pressure plasma treatment generated with a surface barrier discharge system working in the ambient air. Furthermore, it presents the first step towards acceptance of plasma technology as a safe food processing method.